Activity Designer

I love the natural art materials the earth provides this time of year! My four-year-old daughter and I have been having a great time making all sorts of things with acorn caps, such as tiny acorn cap candles, felted wool balls with acorn caps on them, and little fairies acorn caps for hats. This time we created acorn cap "jewels."

What You'll Need

How We Did It

I have seen this idea around the web lately, so I thought we'd give it a try at home.

We had all of the materials on hand, and I'll bet you do, too.

First, my daughter had a great time coloring the insides of the acorn caps with each color marker, and placing them securely in the play dough.

Then she filled each acorn cap up with the school glue.

There were lots of "oohs" right away, as the colors started to seep into the glue.

We set our acorn caps aside to dry for 48 hours. My daughter was very excited to check on them periodically over these days and watch the colors begin to show through the drying glue. Once they were all dry, they looked like vibrant, shining jewels!

We've had lots of fun playing with them since they were made. They've become jewels for indoor and outdoor treasure hunts, pretend "money" in store-related play, and tokens used in our own game of memory (flip them upside down and try to match the colors and remember where they were--if you want to play this, be sure to make two of each color.) The uses are as endless as your child's imagination, and when you're finished playing with these little gems, they bring such a autumnal decorative touch sitting out in a bowl in your home.

Keywords

Comments

My granddaughter and I did this yesterday. I realize the glue is still drying, but our colors didn't seep into the glue as much as yours did and they look rather dull instead of shiny. I did a little experiment and used clear school glue on a few and they have the shiny factor, but the colors aren't quite the same as what was used. Did you clear coat yours to make them shiny? Does it make a difference what kind of markers you use? Thank you.

My child and I completed Acorn Cap Jewels. We had fun collecting the acorn lids in the park, leaving behind the nut for the squirrels. It was great for the little hands to color inside the acorns and squeeze the glue.

I'll have to try this, but I'm confused as to how they turned out looking like a colour had been just been painted on the inside…but in the step before, they are FILLED with glue. Does the glue soak into the acorn cap?

How did you get the final color to turn out so vibrant?! I made these with my son, but the colors ended up being pretty dark.My son and I had fun making these, and watching them dry!! Regardless of the final color, my son is loving playing with his acorn jewels!! :)